


Call him

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [109]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Domestic, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, for the proper language police, kastle - Freeform, one or two bad words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 06:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15723831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: It's an old argument. Hers is a new tactic.





	Call him

**Author's Note:**

> I thought it out, I wrote it, I'm posting it. Short, hopefuly sweet.  
> Much love

The second she walked into that bathroom, she knew he was gonna start.

Karen left him in bed, naked and sweaty, looking at the ceiling, his mind already going in that direction she didn’t like.

She didn’t close the door, hoping that the steam of her shower and the pleasant smell of her body wash would lure him in, but, alas, no luck.

When she walked back out, she already had a plan. It was different than her usual tactic for when he started with the “it’s what’s best for you” bullshit, which was to sit and reason. This time, she decided on shock therapy, so she didn’t bother with the pajamas.

She found him sitting up, underwear on, looking tortured.

“You wanna hop in there?” she asked, trying to act normal, trying to coax him back without playing dirty.

“Yeah”, was his answer, voice low and gruff and it tickled all the right spots. But then, “Listen.”

He reached out for her hand, and she went easily, the left one holding the towel against her body.

Karen bent and placed a kiss on his temple, another by his nose when he lifted his face, another one on his lips.

“You know we can’t keep doing this, right?”

He looked at her as if he was pleading for his life.

“So you keep telling me.”

“And….” he went on, pressing her wrist with his hand, raising it to stroke her arm, and she moved to sit in front of him on the bed. “You know I don’t want to end this. Right? You know that.”

She looked at him - at his tousled hair and rested expression, no bruises in sight - and relaxed the towel around her a bit.

“I know.”

“Yeah. But I have to think- I have to think about your safety. Billy is out of the hospital, God knows what kind of shit he’s gonna try now, I can’t…” He trailed off, squeezing her hands.

“Ok”, she said.

Frank looked at her face with surprise. This is the first time she agreed with him. Usually - every time - she puts up a fight, they go around and around the same arguments, and she ends up winning, and they end up right where they began.

“Ok?”

Karen shrugged.

“Usually, it’s just you being paranoid. But yeah, Russo’s out of the hospital, now, and I doubt house arrest is gonna do much to keep him quiet. So I see your point.”

He blinked at her.

“You do?”

“Yes. You win, this time.”

While he looked at her, still surprised, she rose to her knees and dropped her towel.

Action.

“So what do you think we should do, now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean”, getting up, she picked up the towel and walked to the bathroom to hang it. “Should we, like, act normal or pretend that we haven’t even seen each other after the hotel anymore? Should we go on dates with other people, and such?”

He wasn’t really listening, and she tried her best not to smile.

It was almost midnight, they had quite literally just had sex for the uptenth time in the three months since they did it the first time, but his eyes were locked on her, as if he hadn’t just had his hands and mouth and body all over her just a few minutes ago.

“I mean”, she went on, picking her phone up from the nightstand, standing there naked in front of him. “There are at least three women on this street alone that I know would say yes if you asked them on a date.”

He went “hmm”, pretending to listen, eyes roaming, right hand coming up to scratch his cheek.

“And I guess I could find someone to take me to dinner, or something like that.”

As a test, she bent to pick up the charger cord and, there they go, eyes straight to her ass.

And as much as that pleased her, she needed him to listen. To understand what it meant if she really went along with the “not seeing each other anymore” shenanigan.

“I could always call Matt.”

Ding ding ding. Bingo.

At once, he looked up at her face, and she saw him schooling his expression into a neutral one, doing his best not to betray how much that idea actually infuriated him.

Matt remained a sore spot for Frank, for some reason. He couldn’t even be considered an ex, but Frank saw him as his greatest rival went it came to matters of Karen’s heart. That whole “you love him” speech he had given once upon a time had worked more to convince him than her.

“Murdock”, he said, matter of factly.

“Yeah. Since he ‘came back from the dead’, I’ve only seen him a couple times, and it was all so hurried. And you know we didn’t really get a chance to see if we could make things work, so I guess I could give it a shot.”

“Hmm.”

His eyes descended to her body once again, but it was different this time. He was analyzing, looking for clues, along with trying to keep his cool.

Karen knows just how to rattle him.

“I know Foggy would be thrilled.”

She absolutely did not know that. Poor thing barely had time to adjust it in his head the first time, God knows how he would feel about it after the shit Matt pulled on top of being dead for God knows how long.

“You think I should call him?”

Using her hand on his shoulder for leverage, Karen sat on her feet in front of him again, watching as he got increasingly angrier.

“That is… Up to you.”

“I’m gonna call him. Maybe we could have brunch tomorrow, or something.”

Dialing Matt’s old number, the one that did not exist anymore, she put the phone to her ear and looked at Frank.

“It’s ringing.”

And it did ring, once, twice, before he muttered something that sounded like a “gimme that” and quickly, with the precision of a Marine, reached and took the phone from her, ending the call and throwing it behind him, where it landed neatly on the chair in the corner.

“Frank!” she gasped, not being able to contain her smile anymore, and he tackled her to the bed, pinning her wrists down, moving to settle on top of her, smiling while she laughed. “I thought we agreed!”

“Shut up”, was his reply, that grin on his face, and he let go of one of her wrists to caress her face before kissing her, knowing he had lost.

Karen smiled into his kiss, lifting her legs to wrap them around his hips.

“So I can’t call Matt?” she asked when he lifted his face from hers, her fingers carding into his hair.

“No.”

“I actually should call him, you know. To make sure he’s ok.”

“Fuck him.”

She slapped his arm while he lowered his face to the crook of her neck.

“Don’t say that! Matt has been through a lot these past few months.”

“So have we.  _Matt_  can go fuck himself.”

“You were the one saying that  _I_  should go fuck him a minute ago-”

With a tug of her hip, he shushed her and pressed an open mouthed kiss on her neck before making his way down.

Karen blinked, and smiled.

Hopefully that was that on this subject.


End file.
